LLWorldTour

Wintertime in New Jersey. This year, there seemed to be a crazy amount of snow. But how would I know? It’s not like I’ve spent any winters in New Jersey for twenty years and I’ve been out of the country for three years. So who am I to talk? But, either way, there seemed to be a lot of frickin’ snow.  And it was beautiful.

Despite what many think they know about New Jersey (and believe me, I have heard many a wrong assumption), it has very rural and bucolic areas. I grew up in Randolph, a somewhat standard American suburb, but still with a good share of farmland and forest land as well. So it was no surprise to see this on our front lawn during the recent two-foot snowfall.

Watch the video of my new friends here:

Recently my step-sis, Beth, and I were doing what a lot of people in New Jersey spend a lot of time doing: driving. It was late one night and we were returning from dinner and heading north on the infamous New Jersey Turnpike. We were near Newark, New Jersey’s largest city and a bastion for industry. You’d think growing up in New Jersey as I did, I would have visited here, but nope. It really wasn’t a destination for several reasons…it wasn’t known to be very safe, I didn’t really have my driver’s license until my last year in New Jersey (before I left the state for university) and the fact that New York City is just 8 miles east…so why mess around in Newark?

As we sped passed a large power plant of some kind, all lit up against the night sky, I began to wonder what was really going on there. I caught the name and in modern technology fashion, Beth proceeded to punch it in to Google on her Blackberry and away we went into the world of interesting facts and knowledge (well, for us at least).

According to Wikipedia and various other websites, the gas-fired (natural gas and butane), 940-megawatt Linden Cogeneration Plant was built in 1992. It is owned by El Paso Energy (the nation’s largest natural gas pipeline operator, with more than 43,000 miles of pipe in service) and operated by G.E. Energy Services.

The way in which the facility generates power is intriguing. It burns natural gas, which while not entirely clean is certainly better than a few other sources. But it takes the process one step further.

It uses the heat generated by its five gas turbine generators to pressurize heat recovery steam generators—hence “cogeneration.” The plant is making sure to harness every drop of energy it creates, even heat.

Apparently a percentage of the power produced by the facility is sold into the New York City market in the form of steam.

From a small dry cleaner on Manhattan’s East Side to Rockefeller Center to the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the United Nations, along with some 2,000 other customers and 100,000 buildings, from residential low-rises to commercial skyscrapers, the City of New York is one of the largest consumers of steam. The Roman Catholic Church of St. Peter in lower Manhattan began using steam to warm its sanctuary in 1882, the year the first steam generation plant went into operation in New York. The church has used steam ever since.

Some 30 billion pounds of steam every year flow beneath the streets of Manhattan from the Battery to 96th Street. While it is unknown to most New Yorkers (even though years ago David Letterman talked of the ‘radioactive steam’ wafting up from the city streets), Con Edison’s subterranean steam system is the biggest steam district in the world boasting an annual steam production more than double that of Paris, Europe’s largest system.

The New York City steam system carries steam from central power stations under the streets of Manhattan to heat, cool, or supply power to high rise buildings and businesses.  Cogeneration significantly increases the efficiency of fuel usage and thereby reduces the emission of pollutants and particulate matter and reduces the city’s carbon footprint.

So now I know this super steam system is the reason for the steaming manholes we see all over Manhattan. We did learn this is usually caused by external water being boiled because it came in contact with the freakin’ hot steam pipes, rather than leaks in the steam system itself.

A bit of history:

By the early 1900s, regulations emerged across the U.S. to promote rural electrification through the construction of centralized plants managed by regional utilities. These regulations not only promoted electrification throughout the countryside, but they also discouraged decentralized power generation, such as cogeneration.   By 1978, Congress recognized that efficiency at central power plants had stagnated and sought to encourage improved efficiency with the Public Utility Regulatory Policies Act (PURPA), which encouraged utilities to buy power from other energy producers.

Cogeneration plants proliferated, soon producing about 8 percent of all energy in the U.S. However, the bill left implementation and enforcement up to individual states, resulting in little or nothing being done in many parts of the country.

In 2008, Tom Casten, chairman of Recycled Energy Development, said, “We think we could make about 19 to 20 percent of U.S. electricity with heat that is currently thrown away by industry.”

Cogeneration, also called combined heat and power (CHP), is, according to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, “an efficient, clean, and reliable approach to generating electricity and heat energy from a single fuel source.”  Combined heat and power can greatly increase a facility’s operational efficiency and decrease energy costs. And it is said that CHP reduces the emission of greenhouse gases, which contribute to global climate change.

Outside the U.S., energy recycling is more common. Denmark is probably the most active energy recycler, obtaining about 55% of its energy from cogeneration and waste heat recovery. Other large countries, including Germany, Russia, and India, also obtain a much higher share of their energy from decentralized sources.

Often when non-locals think of New Jersey, they think Sopranos, they think strip malls, they think of one big suburb of New York City and in some cases they’d be right. But there is much more to the Garden State than meets the uninitiated eye. Just scratch a tiny bit beneath the surface and you will find a beautiful state full of dense woodlands where deer frolic (until they are hit by speeding SUVs), charming, quaint colonial towns centered on greens and mainstreets, and miles and miles of sandy beached coastline.

One of my favorite places in New Jersey has always been the attractive town of Princeton. Originally a stagecoach stop between the equidistant cities of New York and Philadelphia, today’s Princeton is a vibrant small city chock full of historic sites, diverse eateries, lots of green space, and magnificent mansions.

Of course, the most famous thing in town is the eponymous University.  Founded in 1746, Princeton University is one of the eight Ivy League universities in the United States.  A walk around campus will not disappoint – Gothic architecture, arched doorways, stained glass windows, and the apropos ivy-covered buildings abound.  Some notable alums?  James Madison, Aaron Burr, Jr, Ralph Nader, Donald Rumsfeld, Brooke Sheilds, Jimmy Stewart and F. Scott Fitzgerald. And let’s not forget famous Princetonians like good old Albert Einstein, Mary Chapin Carpenter, architect Michael Graves, professor and mathematician John Nash, Jr. (portrayed by Russell Crowe in A Beautiful Mind), actor Christopher Reeve, and President Woodrow Wilson.

A stroll around the compact downtown is a nice way to pass an afternoon. Shops, cafes, and bars line Nassau street and Palmer Square.  We stopped for a “beer flight” at the local cavernous Triumph Brewing Company. Princeton’s dining scene runs the gamut from independent cafes, the eclectic Asian cuisine to fine dining. We ducked into lively Mediterra which oddly had Mediterranean cuisine. If you ever happen to be around New Jersey, or want to take a break from the hustle and bustle of New York City, don’t miss an afternoon in Princeton, I promise you won’t be disappointed.

Does anyone dispute that walking is good for you? It’s good for the heart. It’s easy on the joints. It helps clear the mind. And it gets you out into a new or old neighborhood allowing you to soak in the sights, sounds, and smells around you that you would most likely miss from a car.  While traveling, we often walk more than when we are at home. It’s a great way to really ’see’ a new city. But I often like to walk as much as I can at home too. Sometimes cities are thought of as dirty, polluted population centers. But, for the most part, this is simply not the case anymore. Many urban areas across the United States have revitalized and poured lots of funds into their downtown centers – greening, beautifying, and turning old, now defunct warehouse spaces (i.e. Chicago’s West Loop Market District) and even rail lines (i.e. Manhattan’s former High Line elevated train tracks) into new work and living spaces and parks.

Here are some great reasons to get out there and hit the pavement according to walkscore.com, a nifty site started by some Seattle (walk score of 72) software developers.

Why Walking Matters:

• Better health: A study in Washington State found that the average resident of a pedestrian-friendly neighborhood weighs 7 pounds less than someone who lives in a sprawling neighborhood.  Residents of walkable neighborhoods drive less and suffer fewer car accidents, a leading cause of death between the ages of 15-45.
• Reduction in greenhouse gas: Cars are a leading cause of global warming. Your feet are zero-pollution transportation machines.
• More transportation options: Compact neighborhoods tend to have higher population density, which leads to more public transportation options and bicycle infrastructure. Not only is taking the bus cheaper than driving, but riding a bus is ten times safer than driving a car!
• Increased social capital: Walking increases social capital by promoting face-to-face interaction with your neighbors. Studies have shown that for every 10 minutes a person spends in a daily car commute, time spent in community activities falls by 10%.
• Stronger local businesses: Dense, walkable neighborhoods provide local businesses with the foot traffic they need to thrive. It’s easier for pedestrians to shop at many stores on one trip, since they don’t need to drive between destinations.

Walkscore.com ranks addresses and gives them a walk score from 0-100. This is something realtors are starting to use in the sale and marketability of homes and neighborhoods.

Pedestrian-friendly cities and towns can make huge personal economic sense. If you don’t need a car, you can save thousands a year on financing, leasing, insurance, maintenance, gas and parking fees — especially if you own more than one vehicle.

Living where there’s ubiquitous and reliable public transportation and services within a mile or less also means fewer worries about traffic jams, accidents, wasted money and time. And walking is good for you, so you could improve your health and lose weight.

The nation’s top 5 most walkable cities? San Francisco, New York, Boston, Chicago, and Philadelphia. My address in Chicago literally got a walk score of 100%. The score takes into account the restaurants, supermarkets, parks, schools, the lake, movie theaters, bookstores, and coffee shops, all of which are within comfortable walking distance.

My current address in the ‘burbs of New Jersey earned a meager walk score of 34%. It’s a lovely green town, but very spread out and you’d be hard pressed to get around without a car.

The logic seems obvious: You can lose weight each time you walk to the grocery store. You can go out with friends, have a glass of wine and not worry about driving. You spend less money on your car, car insurance, and gasoline—or you don’t own a car at all. When you shop, you support your local economy. You talk to your neighbors. You build a life and a community. Sounds nice, no?

While I was home in New Jersey living once again with my dad and his new wife in my old childhood house, I helped them sort through 36 years worth of stuff (dare I say crap?) before they sell the house and possibly move to a lovely over fifty-five community where the grass is always green and nicely mowed.

So our house here in NJ is a lovely typical suburban split level abode circa 1972. And it hasn’t changed much since.  As I described earlier, my pink bedroom was nearly exactly as I’d left it 20 years ago. And the same could be said for most of the rest of the house, like the kitchen complete with yellow Formica countertops, yellow linoleum floor, and beautiful faux wood grain cabinets. But, now my dad would be selling and trading up for newer more contemporary digs. So I was helping him sort through all kinds of miscellany and junk, a lot of which hadn’t been touched in several decades.

Here are some fun items we came across in the garage…most of which went straight to the trash:

• Burpee seed catalog circa 1987
• Bicentennial commemorative 1976 hot plate
• A tiny Torah. Mazel Tov!
• Old plasticy table cloths
• Half used cans of WD-40 and Oil-in-One
• 20-30 plastic, cobweb-filled plant containers
• Dried up craft paints
• ‘Cleen! Brite-White’ white wall tire spray circa 1978
• 6-7 ice scrapers and various snow brushes
• Approximately 512 used golf balls
• 1 old red snow sled (a keeper!)
• An unidentified tool that looks like a ray gun from a 1960s sci-fi movie
• Drain snake
• Plutonium reactor (just seeing if you are paying attention)
• Coleus Plant seeds circa 1979
• One Headlight (The Wallflowers would be proud)
• 1 Styrofoam egg container
• Axe handle sans Axe head
• Metal Mailbox Letters
• 1970s hanging lamps
• Random bits of wood, glass, Plexiglas, skin
• 1 Hedge Trimmer
• Solidified Turtle wax
• Various balls of twine, rope, and electric cords

Besides most of this stuff that hit the trash before I could say ‘toss it’ we still decided to have a moving sale—the classic American weekend of fun—hocking old, dirty wares to old, dirty bargain hunters.

The morning of said sale, the darn garage sale groupies showed up around 7:30am. Our sale started at 9:00. They were circling like vultures, just waiting to score that coveted old Sinatra LP or misplaced antique.  The funny thing was these early birds all knew each other…it was like a scary gang, but scary as in ‘get a life’ scary.  I went out at 8:30am to say ‘hi’ and ask jokingly ‘what about NO early birds’ didn’t they understand?! I did relent and let them in at 8:50am…nice salesgirl that I am.

Here are some of the luxurious items I sold throughout the day:

• A mini fridge (which was later returned as it was said to ‘not work’ even though it actually did…later sold it on Craigslist.com)
• My ‘Sew Perfect’ little girl sewing machine
• A small pocket knife
• A green glass dish
• An old transistor radio
• My old Soundesign small radio
• A plastic laundry hanger thingy
• The Hardy Boys books
• Couple other books
• A Sudoku coffee table set
• My brother’s old nun chucks. Some kid is going to attack someone with those soon. At least I made a few bucks.
• An old softball bat
• Random stuffed animals
• Assorted games
• A Nurf basketball set
• Barware
• Watches
• Several wall prints
• Frames
• 2 plastic storage boxes
• A never-used charcoal grill
• Old Sheets/bedspreads
• Brass candlesticks
• A silver ice bucket
• A glass jar for .25. (for the buyer to store her ‘fish food’)
• A beautiful never-used car shammy
• Car Seat Cover
• Basket of fake flowers
• Sunglasses
• Clip on Sunglasses
• Sports flip up sunglasses
• Outdoor Chair Cushions

This is it. This is what my life has come down to on a beautiful Saturday. Hawking lame wares to lame people. Ugh.

The last sale of the day? My Fiddler on the Roof Music box. Sniff, sniff. Goodbye Tevye! Just like him, I wish I were a rich (wo)man…and now I know that having a garage sale is not the way to achieve that.

But there is still stuff left if anyone is interested in a twenty-plus year old outdoor umbrella or a shoe horn shaped like a horse.

As a good friend of mine put it so perfectly: One man’s trash is…well, another man’s trash.

Well, technically with 26,000 people I’m not sure if you’d call Randolph, New Jersey a small town, but it’s my hometown and it’s the latest destination of a grand world tour and perhaps just as worthy of recognition as Paris or Hong Kong…well, almost.

Randolph Township’s motto? “Where Life is Worth Living.” It is a bit sad since the opposite would be ‘where life is not worth living’ – are we saying that’s the case if you lived just one town over in Rockaway or Denville?? Seriously, I suppose it speaks to this community’s abundant sense of pride.  Located in the north-central part of the state,  Randolph is a 21-square-mile township in historic Morris County.  As a part of New Jersey’s Highlands region, the land is full of streams, woods, hills and valleys and curving country roads. On a clear day you can see parts of the Manhattan skyline—about 40 miles to the east— from the most elevated bits of Randolph. Although, I don’t think I’ve actually ever seen this or know where to even go to find it.

Designated by the state as half suburban and half rural, some of the sections in Randolph include Mount Fern (where I grew up and my father still lives), Mount Freedom, Millbrook, Coleman Hollow, Center Grove, Ironia and Shongum Lake. I have brought some friends back home with me to Randolph over the years and I recall they were very surprised as to how rural, green, and wooded it was – old stereotypes die hard.

Randolph was originally settled by the Lenni Lenape native American tribe and later by European Colonists and Quakers.  In 1713, New Jersey’s first iron mine was registered and it was located in Randolph. Early Quakers were among those who discovered iron in the area and began to mine it, resulting in New Jersey becoming the country’s third top iron producer for a time.  The iron mines in the township supplied the Revolutionary forces with necessary ore for tools and weapons.  For the next 200 years the iron industry thrived, playing an important part in the development of Randolph.

During the late 1700s, Randolph was a supply point for George Washington’s Continental Army during their winter in nearby Jockey Hollow.  Local legend says Washington came up with Mount Freedom’s name after horseback rides from Morristown to the top of the mountain, where he would contemplate his next war strategies.

Throughout the 1930s and 40s, Randolph’s reputation for healthy water, natural beauty and clean air attracted vacationers from New York City.  During that era, 11 hotel resorts, 45 bungalow colonies, and summer camp and swim clubs– many converted from old farms– were built. Hotel performers included Frank Sinatra, Henny Youngman, Phil Silver and, yes, my grandmother, Esta Saltzman. She came here to perform at the old Saltz Hotel, on the corner of Sussex Turnpike and West Hanover Avenue, having no idea that one day her son would move to this very town to live for nearly four decades.  I became fascinated with these old relics of the past as a kid when I was just exploring the woods with friends. Now abandoned and mostly demolished, I happened to come upon them one day without even knowing what they were. I remember seeing old dilapidated bungalows and an old resort swimming pool formerly filled with happy, splashing vacationers, now filled with tires and junk.  Two of the largest resort hotels, Saltz’s and Ackerman’s, survived into the 1970s.

Today, Randolph’s 24 historic landmarks range from the centuries-old Liberty Tree to the Friends Meeting House founded by Quakers in 1758, to the circa 1924 Millbrook School, which is now used as office space.

Even though, development has continued, Randolph still has many acres of open space and parkland. And old farmhouses, mills, and historical churches dot the landscape reminding us of its heritage.

Within its 400 acres of parkland, Randolph has soccer and basketball fields, tennis courts, skating ponds, a theatre, and a cross-country skiing trail.  A biking and hiking trail system also traverses 14 miles through five parks and 2,000 acres of open space.

I have to admit, as a kid, I didn’t appreciate all that Randolph had to offer. I found it ‘boring.’ There was ‘never anything to do.’  All the ‘cool things’ were in other towns. Sure, it is still a sprawling suburb with no real town center, but now that I had time to hang out there again as an adult over the last three months I appreciate it much more. It’s a beautiful, green, historical town and I was lucky to grow up there – even if I had no idea until now.

What famous (or quasi-famous) people came out of Randolph, New Jersey??

• Klaus Peter Loebbe – retired chairman and CEO of BASF Corporation.
• Dale Baumwoll – children’s author
• George Parros – professional hockey player for the Anaheim Ducks.
• Gary Rizzo – sound re-recording mixer whose credits include Office Space, Munich, Clerks II, The Prestige, A Bug’s Life, Batman Begins, The Incredibles (for which he was nominated for a 2005 Academy Award in the category Best Achievement in Sound).
• Hayden Schlossberg – screenwriter of Harold & Kumar Go to White Castle.
• Oh…and Lisa Lubin? Emmy award winning producer and professional traveling vagabond? Well, maybe someday.

I’m from Joisey? Are you from Joisey?
What exit?

Let’s get two important things out of the way right now. I am originally from New Jersey (pronounced New Jer-zee by just about everyone here). And, while there are some major highways (the NJ Turnpike, the Garden State Parkway, and US Interstate 80) that run through our little state, New Jersey is still known as the garden state for good reason: a large portion of it consists of expansive rural areas, beautiful wooded acreage, and farms. In fact, half the state is still woodlands and it is home to more than 9,800 farms covering 790,000 acres of farmland. No, you don’t really see this on The Sopranos – well, unless Tony or one of his boys are dragging someone into the woods by their ankles. Got it? Good.

You know it’s a special state when it’s only one of two in the entire nation where you cannot pump your own gas. That’s right – all gas stations are full service and full service only. Eric DeGesero of the New Jersey Fuel Merchants Association said New Jersey requires full service gas stations as a way of creating jobs, limiting accidents and assisting the elderly. And there are no plans to repeal the full service requirement.  After living elsewhere, it seems a bit snobby and lazy to just sit in your car while someone else scurries about tending to all your fueling needs, but then again, I haven’t been here in winter in a quite some time. Of course, we all get out of our cars in the frigid Chicago winters to fuel up so maybe New Jerseyans are a bit pampered.

New Jersey, the home of renowned Princeton University, is a state in the Northeastern region of the United States. It is bordered on the north by New York, to its east the Hudson River and the Atlantic Ocean. Delaware borders New Jersey only on the southwestern side and Pennsylvania lies to the west.

Inhabited by Native Americans for more than 2,800 years, the first European settlements in the area were established by the Swedes and Dutch in the early 1600s. The English later seized control of the region in 1664, naming it the Province of New Jersey. The name was taken from the largest of the English Channel Islands, Jersey. Our little state was one of the original Thirteen Colonies that revolted against British rule in the American Revolution and it was an important site during the American Revolutionary War; several major battles were fought here and we learned about them over and over and over in grade school. So much so, that I think our knowledge of other major wars was quite limited. Today, New Jersey has the highest population density and the second highest median income of any state in the United States. Several New Jersey counties are ranked among the highest-income counties in the entire nation.

I was born and grew up in Northwest New Jersey, or the “Skylands.” It is known as a wooded, rural, and mountainous area…and was often a surprise to my friends who visited me here expecting it to look like Newark, a big industrial city near New York City. They were not disappointed by its beauty, curvy wooded roads and rural colonial feel. The rest of the state is filled with lakes, the Appalachian Mountains which create a wide area of hills and valleys in the entire north region, the pine barren forests in the south and the miles and miles of coastal beaches running all up and down the east coast–locally it’s simply called the Jersey Shore.  In fact, Cape May, at the southern tip, is the oldest seashore resort area in the United States. It has the second largest collection of Victorian-era homes in the nation after San Francisco and is the only entire city in the country to be named a national historic landmark. Yes, there are some cities and lots of industry near the Hudson River and New York City area.  But the rest of the state is plenty green.

New Jersey is one of the most religiously and ethnically diverse states in the country. By percentage, it has the second largest Jewish population after New York; the second largest Muslim population (after Michigan); the third highest Asian population, and the third highest Italian-American population of any state according to the 2000 Census.  All this translates into some fun people and some damn tasty food at every turn.

Once I left the state back in the early 90s, it was only then that I finally started to appreciate it for its beauty and everything it had to offer. I defend my home state early and often and although I love my adopted hometown of Chicago, there has always been a piece of my heart right back here in New Jersey.

Some fun facts:

New Jersey has the lowest rate of depression in the United States found by a study from NAMI National Alliance on Mental Illness (Is this because they are all rich or because no one has to pump their own gas??).

New Jersey is the birthplace of many modern inventions such as: FM radio, the motion picture camera, the lithium battery, the light bulb (thanks Thomas Alva Edison), transistors, and the electric train. Other New Jersey creations include: the drive-in movie, the cultivated blueberry, cranberry sauce, the postcard, the boardwalk, the zipper, the phonograph, saltwater taffy, and the ice cream cone.

1. The first organized baseball game was played in Hoboken, NJ in 1846.
2. New Jersey has more diners than any other state or any place in the world: more than 600
3. New Jersey’s State House is the second oldest still in use (Maryland has the oldest).
4. New Jersey was known as the “Pathway of the Revolution.” Over 100 Revolutionary war battles were fought on New Jersey soil.
5. New Jersey has more horses per square mile than any other state. The United States Equestrian Team is headquartered in Gladstone, NJ.
6. The properties in the United States version of the board game Monopoly are named after the streets of Atlantic City.
7. It’s the first state to sign the Bill of Rights.
8. The first professional basketball game was played in Trenton, NJ in 1896.
9. New Jersey has 127 miles of coastline on the Atlantic Ocean.
10. New Jersey is home to more than 9,800 farms covering 790,000 acres of farmland.

Some Famous New Jerseyans:

• Bruce Springstein
• Jon Bon Jovi
• Frank Sinatra
• John Travolta
• Tom Cruise
• Bruce Willis
• Brooke Shields
• Budd Abbot
• Whitney Houston
• Jack Nicholson
• Martha Stewart
• Jon Stewart
• Jason Alexander
• Zach Braff
• Danny Devito
• Michael Douglas
• Kirsten Dunst
• Ed Harris
• Derek Jeter
• Laryn Hill
• Queen Latifah
• Jerry Lewis
• Kelly Ripa
• Joe Pesci
• Dennis Rodman
• Meryl Streep
• Anne Hathaway

My father recently married his sweetheart of the last five years. A few of my friends joked and asked me if I was walking him down the aisle. Considering he has yet to be able to do this for me, it may be my only aisle-walking experience – except going up and down the aisle on one of my many airplane flights.

It was a fun and happy weekend full of family, laughs, and more Chinese Buffet! Growing up, our family was pretty small and we didn’t get out all that much and then I moved away. It is really fun to be back home now for awhile – to hang out with my dad and get to know my new and expanding family. My gift to them was a wedding album, but this was not your usual sticky page photo album. Instead it was a really nice bound coffee table-type book filled with photos I took at their wedding. Here’s a very cool website called Blurb, where I downloaded the software to design and create this book. It’s very cool. Check it out. You can make your very own book or even buy the one I made if you want pics of Carol and Jamie for your very own coffee table!

Carol & Jamie

The Wedding

By Lisa Lubin

Book Preview

“Goin’ to the Chapel…”

“…and we’re gonna get married.”

Our new expanded family!

Congratulations Dad & Carol!

…And I don’t mean my haircolor.

I have now lived more of my life away from my childhood home than I did when I was here growing up. That’s scary. I grew up in suburban middle to upper class Randolph, New Jersey. When I was a shiny, young eighteen-year-old, I left to study journalism at the University of South Carolina about 800 or so miles away. And I never returned.

Now, after about 13 years working in television, several apartments, several boyfriends, one cat, and a two-and-a-half-year trip around the world, I am back, sleeping in my ultra-girly, über-frilly, childhood twin-sized bed with  flowery sheets, a pink flowery blanket, surrounded by pink flowery wallpaper. It’s all a bit of a floral overload. But it does get me in the mood for springtime on the east coast awakening my senses to its glorious first signs – the purple heads of crocuses popping up through the no longer frozen front yard, neighborhood kids riding their bikes and playing on the street, the clean scent of freshly cut grass, and the sweet chirps of blue jays in the trees just outside my window.

Something interesting I notice: the sun seems to shine brighter here, literally. The skies are a beautiful cobalt blue, the air is crisp, and the sun is beaming down slicing through the atmosphere into my squinting eyes and warming my skin, sending me signals that winter is turning into spring.

Not only am I back for a bit, it’s like I am a teenager again. This is the easy life – I have nice bed to sleep in, I am fed, and I have no worries. Just like the old days, I ‘borrow’ my dad’s car to go see old friends or go shopping, making it the first time I have driven any car in about a year. I think because I have been living in Chicago, I haven’t seen any reminders of days gone by – but being back here now, enjoying the sunny days and small-town life,  it’s hard not to feel a bit nostalgic.

Now my father is getting remarried and will be selling our childhood home. I am finally getting rid of a lot of ‘junk’ and packing up things of mine that have sat here in this room for the last 19 years like some kind of museum to Lisa Lubin or at least a time capsule of the ‘eighties – old Bon Jovi cassette tapes, dusty tired-looking stuffed animals, my old sticker collection (what’s wrong with that?), birthday cards from nearly every year, collections of random bits of string, ‘friendship pins,’ beads, marbles, and even a great bag of cool rocks (“What did you get Charlie Brown?”) that I could just not get myself to throw away.  I also read through stacks of old school work – including what is possibly my first travel article ever, a report on Switzerland – and letters bringing back lots of memories of my childhood and teenage years here in New Jersey of the’80s – big hair, ripped acid washed jeans, and heavy metal bands.

I went to the supermarket and it felt strange how everything was in English and when I went to check out, I understood everything the cashier said. There was no need for phrases like “Désole, je ne parle pas Français or ‘Ich verste nicht’ or ‘Turkce Bilmiyorim.’ It was simple, so simple, in fact, that it was downright boring. Where’s the challenge in understanding everything?  And as I recalled from the last time I returned home – there is so much to take in here, but maybe perhaps it is because I can understand it all. When in Turkey or France or Jordan, there was also advertising in my face everywhere I went – still less of course than in some big U.S. cities – but I couldn’t read most of it anyway so it’s highly researched and tested marketing purpose was lost on me – which I kind of like. But, a very nice thing about shopping in America is that without fail, when leaving most shops you are sure to hear, ‘thank you and have a nice day.’

I went for a run around my old neighborhood in Mt. Fern and was a bit overwhelmed by the flood of memories from more than twenty years ago. I know the tears in my eyes were from the cold wind whipping into them, but the mix of  nostalgic flashbacks going on in my head turned them into real tears of times gone by. I remembered playing on our front lawn on what seemed like a big hill at the time, where we would sled down ice and snow in the winter and roll down the cushy green grass in the summer; the now rusty bell attached to our house with the words “the Lubins” written in calligraphy across it, that my dad would ring when it was time to come in for dinner; the Aboia twin’s house where we played hide and seek in their small apple orchard. As kids, we knew all the houses on the block and who lived in each: the Laneses, the Andersons, the Visiolis, the Moores, the Greccos, the Brodbecks, the Marshs, the Wingets, the Tczaps, the Nisivoccias, the Cullums, the Matulas, friendly old Mrs. Voswinkle, my best friend, Holly Zimmerman’s old house before she left me in tears in sixth grade to move to Florida, the Campson’s house, a family who we regrettably made fun of all the time, my fun little playmate and next door neighbor, Sidhu Raju’s house. Sidhu was always my buddy and a willing partner in crime to come out and play with, to hit tennis balls against the garage door, and swing on the vines on the trees in the woods next to my house. I remember riding my bike up and down the street, sitting on May Burgess’ lawn waiting for the ice cream truck to ding by. And playing my favorite outdoor summer games with my brother: running bases, kick the can, s.p.u.d., and regular-old-tag.

I walked (or ran is more like it since I was notoriously late) up and down my street every morning and afternoon school day to catch the number 64 bus driven by Mrs. Crane.  As we got older the games changed and all the neighborhood kids didn’t hang out with each other anymore. We each had our own groups and cliques and the times of being friends with everyone, no matter what, were over.   We played less outside and more on our Intellivision game inside or spent weekend afternoons roaming the Rockaway Townsquare Mall, eating a McD.L.T. and diet Coke at McDonald’s and buying earrings at Claire’s.

And all this was now more than twenty years ago. Where did all the time go? I’ve done so much and been so far and yet being back here for the first extended amount of time since then made me feel like I’d barely been gone. Most of the neighbors I remember had moved away. Most of my childhood friends, just as myself, had done the same.

In high school, when I finally got my braces off, replaced my glasses with contacts, and shed my baby fat, well, not much happened. I still felt the same.  Eventually, guys started to notice me and I started dating here and there, but it wasn’t until the end of my senior year that I fell in love for the first time with a boy that had lived just 2 blocks away from me the whole time. He was the best first boyfriend a young girl could ever ask for. He was so sweet and kind and made me laugh until tears came out my eyes. He treated me like a princess and I think spoiled me for all my future relationships. Sometimes I wonder why there were any future relationships. But, I left him back in Randolph when I went off to university and my days of wandering began.

Now I was back and living ‘at home’ again. On one of my first nights back, my dad and step-mom-to-be took me to what is possibly, the ultimate symbol of suburban Americana: the Chinese Buffet. Filled with hungry overstuffed, pants bursting patrons, these establishments dot the New Jersey landscape in ugly highway-side strip malls lined with neon signs and surrounded by huge flat parking lots filled with SUVs. The inside is classic: green cushioned chairs and booths and tables partitioned with a lovely etched glass of some forlorn Asian-looking fish. Some extra large patrons shuffled by with plates of food piled so high, I guess they didn’t want to hassle with that extra effort of actually standing up too often to help themselves to another gargantuan portion of fried greasy noodles. This is America. At least you knew it in the cross section of people around: Indians, Asians, Russians, and the regular-old former European Jersey rednecks. Oh, and us of course.

That’s right. Like a good bout with déjà vu, I am back in the good ol’ U.S. of A.  I have actually just arrived at the Washington Dulles Airport and am trying to make some quick observations and judgments (yes, judgments) on the cross section of people before me. Now, granted, I am in an airport. It is probably more international than the average American main street. But now I sit waiting for my domestic connection to vacation hotspot, Newark, New Jersey and am surrounded by a majority of Americans. So who do I see? The basic answer is a little of everything: fat people, fit people, sloppy people, well-dressed people, short, black, tall, white, on and on. Possibly a bit less stylish and civilized than those I left hours ago in France, but probably also a bit friendlier. American really is the least homogonous place I’ve seen in a long time and hence we are back to the oft-used term of melting pot. America truly is one big fat creamy stew of all kinds and you just can’t put a label on it – many try to and many labels stick, but I am here to say – peel them off! As I traveled, I met a lot of folks who think they know who Americans are, but I think we are practically indefinable.

My traveling days are over…at least for now. Well, maybe just on a hiatus. Okay….a ten day hiatus, I am soon going down to Virginia (dragging the same damn bag) to see my brother, sis-in-law,  and cutie-pie nephew, Nick.

Then I will fly over to visit my mom in Colorado for some nice hugs and laughs. Then I will be back in New Jersey for my dad’s nuptials and then finally, in May, I return to my beloved Chicago where I suppose I will hang out for awhile and see what materializes. And believe it or not, I’m ready, so ready in fact that I counted down the days (good thing they were numbered – that made it easier). ‘What?’ you say. Yes. I’m tired, mentally tired. And it all goes in line with what I’d learned the first ‘go around.’ I need to do things – work, volunteer, anything that makes me local and keeps me in a place for a few months. On this leg of the journey, I traveled because I had a free ticket so I figured why not? But then I traveled more like a tourist which taught me again that that’s not what I want to be.  Don’t get me wrong, I had great times and met more and more interesting and fun people, saw beautiful places from France to Egypt and Estonia to Israel, but I suppose for now I need to hang up my walking shoes.

I have been traveling on and off now for 2 ½ years or 29 months or 124 weeks or roughly 875 days.  Sometimes I travel fast…jetting on cheap budget European airline to my next city and sometimes I travel slow – getting an apartment and a temporary job and not touching my bag for several months.  But, I think, as marathon runners often say, ‘I am finally hitting the wall.’ And scary and limiting as it may be, perhaps it is time to ‘plant some roots’ again and see how it all feels – I’ll probably feel like a caged monkey and possibly it won’t be long until I’m off and running again.